There may never be another empirical power in the world as education and communication inform populations. The US public eventually pull back military expeditions. Will the Russian people do the same in Ukraine? Slightly less education and slightly more information control so the elite there may be able to take their ambitions further. China is the largest of other nations that have limited/controlled information but they have good education. There are other Arabic, African and Asian nations with poor general education and controlled information. Most of these seem focused on trying to maintain this internal control rather than an aggressive development of an empire.
Empires have moved from governments to corporates. Ford, Coke, Microsoft, Tata, etc. Here money rather than arms are the tool to expand and dominate. These corporations don't want war, as it stops trade. This corporate objective increases the barrier against an aggressive nation attempting to dominate another. But what has enabled both the early national empires and the later corporate empires?
Technology & education. More precisely a technology that was unique to and gave an advantage and usually several cascading technology advances that accumilted so that the whole was bigger than the sum. Education that includes training and discipline. The ability to build ships, the weapons, the processes, sexton, marine watches, communications. These enabled those equipped with these to adapt to changing situations. As they were deployed they would be adapted and new technologies and information would emerge. Corporates too used multiple technological advantages to get ahead.
Both national and corporate empires required investment to develop maintain technologies and both seem to get to a stage where their size prevents innovation. Where the received wisdom stifles innovation allowing competitors to catch up and weaken, undermine and evetully destroy the advantage.
However, innovation in technology today does not need as much money, and the drivers to develop and evolve are not just based on greed and power, but on humanities and problem solving. Education, information are readily available in most developed countries. Some of it especially the state/mass education is limited. It is more about training people for jobs than educating them to make the most of their lives or contribute (other than as a worker).
In Israel they still have national service, they have a clear identifiable enemy, they have a high standard of standard and higher science focused education. The national service equalises the population deminishing the elitism increases cooperation and team work. The identifiable enemy gives focus, showing that a common objective with team work can lead to innovation. The sience based education enables evidenced based progress. The result is that Israel has more research centres, start ups and incubators per capita than anywhere else in the world. It has more start ups on NASDQ than Europe and India combined.
They are not all going to succeed but evolution is about creating lots and seeing which survives. It also creates the opportunity for them to combine or take parts of each other to make a something new and better. With limited natural resources, technology is the way to generate wealth and a unique place in the world economy. Is it sustainable? Nothing is, but if you can get far enough ahead, not just in what you do but the way you do it, others will take a long time to catch up.
In the UK the world wars levelled society. Since then inequality has crept in. The politicians have become subservient to the business elite and between them are holding their position by keeping the working classes relatively poor, educationally and financially. Even where the working classes make it they still remain outside those born into money. This imperial class view, the poor sience based education, the promotion of the individual over the team, are gradually squandering the opportunity for the UK to retain and improve its position in the world.
